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who. wash and york [cr aus]
what. wash comes clean about his feelings. yes, those feelings.
where. their apartment.
when. backdated to 5/22.
warnings. wash being dumb. and feelings.

Wash still isn't sure when it happened. Maybe it wasn't even one particular moment. Maybe it was just the kind of thing that builds up naturally when you spend a year of your life with someone -- a weird year, a year that's taken you from one universe to another and home in between. And sure, he'd spent a lot of that year trying to untangle memory from reality, tear the thoughts of the Yorks he'd known from the one who'd stayed, until they weren't friends because they already had been, but because they'd had to build it up from the very start.

Maybe it was just inevitable. Maybe it just makes sense, considering where she comes from. The Wash of her universe had loved her, after all, and for all the alternates he's met of himself and the people he knows, Wash knows that there are similarities in all of them. Maybe his taste wasn't all that different across universes. Because she is everything he likes, beautiful and witty and brave and more than able to toss all his bullshit right back at him without blinking an eye, and she's so, so much more.

York's his best friend.

Which is why it's so hard to face this. To stop pushing all of these emotions back and acknowledge what he does feel for her. Because she's helped hold him together for the past year, and he can't imagine how he could have withstood it without her. He can't lose her. He can't.

But he can't keep this from her. It doesn't matter how good of a liar he is. He can't face her every day when they flop on the couch and watch dumb movies and pretend he doesn't feel this way. He can't do it. Not after everything they've been through.

York's been out most of the day. Enough time for Wash to convince himself about three times over that this was the worst idea, ever, of all time, and that he was going to do it anyway. Enough time for him to annoy the cat with his pacing. Enough time that even everything he'd tried to do to convince himself to give it up hadn't worked. He'd picked today because of what it meant, because of how long it had been, and if he doesn't do it today, he doesn't know if he's going to work up the nerve again.

Wash thanks whatever cosmic powers are out there that he's in his room when she gets home. Gives him enough time to collect himself, straighten his clothes. Try and look presentable.

God, if nothing else, he hopes they can still be friends.

He meets her out in the kitchen with a smile he hopes isn't too forced.

"Hey. Welcome back."

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Wash has been pretty good about things lately. She knows he's a natural worrier -- every Wash she's met is -- and that he cares, and that he's been putting effort into not getting in her hair lately. He's been giving her a whole lot of space since she came back from the clinic last month, more than she was really expecting, but she's grateful for it. York might be spending a lot of time determinedly not thinking about how slowly her face is healing, how much it still hurts, but she thinks this is what she needs.

So things have been okay, while York tries to get herself back to normal. Back to feeling normal instead of pretending like she does. It hasn't been easy, but knowing that Wash is giving her space and he's still there all the same, that makes it easier. Especially when every other customer is so keen on reminding her that her face is a wreck, right now. (Not always in a bad way, though. It is a krogan bar, after all.)

She's just come off a day shift, opted out of wearing armor to work for once because The Quad already gets warm enough inside, small as it is, and the AC's been on the fritz. So she comes home in civvies for once, heading straight for the kitchen for a drink of water. She gives Wash a slightly tired grin over the glass as she takes a long sip, leaning against the fridge.

"Hey," she says, pushing her hair from her face. "Sorry I was gone all day. Hopin' that's the last time I work a day shift around here. Daytime drunks are bad enough, but it's about a hundred times worse if they're krogan."

"I can imagine."

It goes against just about every instinct he's got to leave her alone as much as he has, this past month. But he knows she needs it more than she needs anything he could possibly give her. York can take care of herself, no matter what he thinks about it, and all he can do is trust her.

And the smile she gives him, tired but okay, makes it all worth it.

"Least you have the night off." Wash gives her a smile in return, but it's smaller, tighter at the edges. More reserved. He leans back against the opposite counter, keeping a good couple feet between them. "Hey, York," he says after a moment. "Do you know what today is?"

It's not hard to see that something's a little different today, but honestly, she's tired enough from work and everything else going on that she finds it easy to shrug off. He's been doing his level best to keep a safe distance, knowing she needs it, and hey, that can be draining. It can be hard. Why he's trying so hard to keep a physical distance, she's not really sure. Maybe he's about to drop some bad news or something, feels like he can't trust her not to react rationally.

So she braces herself inwardly, but all that comes is an innocuous question. He doesn't look apprehensive in the way she'd expect if he was expecting a bad answer. She just cocks an eyebrow, taking another sip of her water. "Uh, Wednesday?"

Edited 2013-05-25 01:50 (UTC)

"Well, yes," he admits. Rubs the back of his head. He's not apprehensive, exactly, it's just... god, this is hard. He knows what he wants to tell her, but how is the hard part. Harder than he ever thought it could be.

Not much he can do but come out with it.

"It's been a year," he says after a moment. "You know, since you-- since we met."

York's brow furrows, her good eye sliding off to a distant corner of the room in thought, but it's only for a moment, and a muted smile breaks out across her face, crinkling the burned pink flesh that peeks out from underneath the gauze. She lets out a quiet chuckle, rubbing her thumb along the rim of her glass. "Hey, that's today?" she says, her smile broadening a little. Yeah, a year sounds about right, now that she thinks about it. She hasn't exactly kept track of the dates, and she's had a few other things on her mind more important than the anniversary of her getting jerked out of her own universe. But meeting Wash, this Wash -- yeah, that's worth remembering. "Man, I didn't even know you were keepin' track."

"I'm-- you know. Good at remembering." He tries to inject some humor into it, but, well, it's Wash. He can only do so much. But he gives her a wan smile and shrugs his shoulders. "Been a hell of a year. For both of us. I never really thought we'd end up..." Emotionally tangled? In a totally different universe? Still living together after all this time? He doesn't even know where to begin. "--well. Like this."

Oh, boy. York can tell by now that's a signal that Wash is moving into emotional territory, which...historically, doesn't always go that well. She wonders if she ought to brace herself, if this is him finally breaking his silence about what happened to her face and he's gonna make her talk about it now.

York raises an eyebrow a little, though the look she gives him is a little cautious, somehow. "Yeah, I know you are," she murmurs, still smiling slightly. "Y'know, I didn't really think we'd end up like this either. You spent so much time determinedly tryin' not to be my friend, I damn near moved out a couple times, you know that? But, y'know, for what it's worth..." She shrugs, more of a sheepish gesture than anything. "I'm glad I didn't."

Wash snorts. "Not like I could have blamed you if you did." Hell, he's still surprised she'd stuck with him all this time. They hadn't made very good housemates, much less friends, when all they'd seen in each other were the ghosts of people they weren't, but... they'd figured it out, eventually. And they'd come out the stronger for it.

And now here he is about to put all that in jeopardy. He's still got time to back out. Hell, maybe he should back out. But all he has to do is look up at that smile, and he knows he can't do that.

"York... you've been the best friend I've ever had, you know that? No matter what universe. You've always had my back." He swallows. Forces a smile on his face, hard as it is. "I don't think I would have made it through the last year without you. You..."

No. He can't turn away from this.

"You mean everything to me."

Oh, Jesus. She's really not sure where he's going with this, but she feels uneasy, nervous in a way she usually doesn't. It's the not knowing that really gets her. She might know Wash -- pretty damn well, all things considered -- but he's not really predictable. And he's always been different from the Wash she knew. They don't always make the same call, the same move. Either way, it's obvious that he's serious, that this is already intense. And York is usually on the other side of these conversations.

"Wash," she says, not really sure how to follow that up or what she really wants to say, whether she's trying to get him to spit it out or stall for time. She sets her glass down, curling her hands around the edge of the counter. Somehow she feels like she needs to brace herself. "C'mon, it's not like you have to -- y'know."

Edited 2013-06-04 19:08 (UTC)

He shakes his head, signalling for her to stop. He doesn't know if he can get it all out if she cuts him off, and now that he's started, he can feel it bubbling at the base of his stomach, waiting for him to spit out out.

"I know. I mean-- I know." Of course she already knows. They wouldn't be here if they weren't well aware of it. "But that's why I can't just-- I can't ignore this. I can't lie to you. Not about this."

He meets her eyes. He's thought about how to say this a dozen times, unsure how to even begin to convey how he feels about her, and now that it's actually here, there's only one way he can say it. "I... have feelings for you."

Edited 2013-06-04 19:55 (UTC)

York feels the bottom drop out of her stomach. She can't quite think for a long moment, because the second the words come out it his mouth, it feels like her head just fills up with static. She's not prepared for this. Somehow over the last year, Wash has become a constant in her life, the only one left, really -- he's the only one who's been there since the start of all this. She's really come to rely on him being there, and she'd like to think he feels the same. That that could change this far into the game, after this long, isn't something she'd really been prepared to deal with. She'd like to think that most things just roll right off her, but some things are a little too big to shrug off.

"Oh, come on, don't -- Wash," York says, half mumbling. She shifts her gaze to the floor, the wall past Wash, her hands grabbing the counter a little tighter than she really needs to. She tries to meet his gaze again, her face a mixture of bewilderment and alarm, but she's trying to look okay. "This isn't -- you don't have to do this, alright, man? I'm fine. Whatever this is about, I'm fine, okay?"

He's had a lot of time to think about all the ways she could respond, but somehow, this had never been one of them. In and of itself, he's not sure whether that's good or bad. Outright denial was one thing, and he's considered that, but she clearly thinks there's something else at work, and... well, honestly, Wash has no idea what to make of it.

He has to swallow to get his voice back, but he tries to look at her, tries to keep his voice steady. "York, that's not what I-- I didn't-- what are you talking about?"

She can't manage to hold his gaze for more than a couple seconds. Man, this is uncomfortable. This is humiliating, more than anything. And York doesn't usually feel embarrassed, so maybe that's why it burns that much more. She just shifts, uncomfortably, shrugging her shoulders and raking her fingers though her hair.

"Look, I don't know if this is about my face, or David, or what, but -- I've moved on, all right? You don't have to try to make me feel better or -- try to give me something you think is gonna comfort me. I've made my peace with it. I don't need anybody's -- I'm fine, all right?"

"What are you--"

He almost can't process what she's implying, here, it doesn't make sense-- and he knows her too well to imagine it's anything else. He's been there for her too many times. It's the fact that that's what her mind had settled on first that throws him, and it takes Wash a good few moments to catch himself, stumbling over his words a good few times before he can even start off a sentence, the incredulity seeping from every word.

"York, is that-- is that what you think this is? Some-- some misguided sense of pity?"

Man, the tone of his voice doesn't make it any easier to respond, either. York's not sure how this is supposed to go anymore. She's not sure what this is, if it's not some kind of pity move. She lets out an agitated noise, raking her hands back through her hair again, still looking uneasy.

"Shit, I don't know," she says, looking at Wash, and her expression is helpless, at a loss. It looks out of place on her face. "I don't know, okay? The way things've been goin' for me these days, I don't know what I'm supposed to think. Jesus, man, it's just -- don't look at me like that, all right?"

Wash bites his lip. Tries to dial his tone back a little, but the shock still wears at his expression, and the hurt bleeds through despite himself. For all the time he's spent trying to keep his emotions at bay, he feels too raw now to keep from laying them all on the table. "I just-- why would you ever think that?" he says finally, desperate to figure out what's going on in her head. "I wouldn't have-- I wouldn't be telling you this if I didn't--"

Man, is she off the mark. Even if he hadn't managed to say anything, it'd be obvious just from his face. York lets out a noise of frustration, rubbing her hand over the back of her neck. This one is definitely not anywhere in her playbook, that's for sure.

"I'm sorry, okay?" She means it, too. She looks at him, apologetic grimace and all, almost guilty-looking. For fuck's sake, this is the sort of thing she's supposed to be able to handle gracefully, or at least glibly. "I just -- I wasn't expecting to hear that from you. You caught me off guard, okay? And the way the last year's been -- " She breaks off, fingers still rubbing at the back of her neck over and over again, tracing over the empty chip slot, and the look she gives Wash now is nothing short of sincere, almost desperately so. It's not a look that crosses her face often. "It's just -- you know I know you're not him, right? I don't see him when I look at you. You're a whole different person to me. You've gotta know that, okay?"

He can tell this is hard on her, and he understand it, he does, but it doesn't make it any easier to take that look. This is just difficult. But it's out there now. No taking it back.

And this, at least, he's been expecting. "Course I know that," he says, his voice rough. He's... wondered, now and then, he can't lie about that, but the way she looks at him-- it's not the way it was when they first met. When she was seeing a ghost in his eyes. "I've known it for months. We're-- different. Both of us." Wash swallows. Tries to get past the lump in his throat. "Doesn't-- it doesn't change how I feel."

York knows that look. It's not just because it's Wash. She's seen it on other men's faces before. Old boyfriends. Her dad, when she'd caught him looking at her mom like that once in a while. And yeah, on David's face, too. But she knows this isn't her David, and...he's long since stopped seeing Sean when he looks at her, she knows that much.

York feels her chest tighten, hairs raising on the back of her neck. It's nerves, just nerves, like she hasn't had for a long time. She doesn't even try to swallow, balling one fist tightly, rubbing her thumb over whitened knuckles. She tries to smile, but it comes out mangled and small. "Y'know, when we first met, you were wigged out just by my existing," she says, trying to play it off, trying to lighten the mood, but nobody would be fooled. Wash has her attention, that's for sure. All of her attempts to seem casual just fall through. She tries to laugh, but it just comes out as a nervous breath. "So -- what changed, huh?"

There's nothing he can really say to deny that, but they've known each other so long now that he can't see them as anything but completely separate people. "Well-- shit, York." Wash looks like he doesn't know what to say, only he does, there's so much he can say, it's just that he's missing the words to express it-- and when he does open his mouth he can't stop. "I mean, you're-- you. You've got my back and you look out for me and you're smart and gorgeous and funny and you give back all the shit I give you. You're just-- you're everything I ever wanted."

He pauses to take a breath, steady himself. "And-- I trust you. More than anything."

York expects to feel relieved, and she does, to a degree, but she also feels the prickle of heat creeping into her face, the dryness of her mouth and the tightness in her chest as she waits to breathe until he's finished talking and when he says the word gorgeous her fingers smooth over the edges of the burned skin on her left cheek, an old habit renewed.

"Hey -- hey, I know. You know the same goes for you, right?" Maybe they haven't ever said as much, but York feels like she's known that for awhile. Ever since that talk back on Asphodel, when they'd finally decided to really trust one another, it's only steadily grown. And ever since they came to Omega -- well, they really haven't had anyone else to rely on but each other.

But the rest of it -- she doesn't even know what to say to it, for once. She feels like she's still reeling a little, somehow, and she lets out a hoarse, self-deprecating laugh, pressing the heel of her hand into her forehead. "Man, I am such an asshole."

Despite himself, Wash finds himself smiling. Somehow, he feels like the unbearable tension is starting to break -- that even though this is all still difficult, they'll get through it. Just like they've gotten through everything else.

"Yeah, but so am I," Wash says. He takes a step forward, shifting to lean against the opposite counter. "You know that better than anybody. And you put up with me anyway." He shrugs, and his smile gets a little sheepish. "Is it that surprising I like you?"

Edited 2013-06-21 18:29 (UTC)

She can't say that it's not a relief, the way Wash reacts to it. That he takes it in stride, tries to keep them level despite her knee jerk response. York manages a half-smile, still subdued and self-depreciating, finally loosening her grip on the edge of the counter. She flexes her fingers absent-mindedly.

"Yes and no," she admits, smoothing her hands over the front of her jeans. "I mean -- I can see it, you know? 'Course I do. I just...wasn't expecting it from you. It just seemed -- I dunno, I guess I just assumed you weren't really interested, not like that. Goes to show you what I know." She rakes a hand back through her hair, letting out a breath. She looks at him, her smile sheepish and almost nervous, as much as she ever looks nervous. "So, what -- you wanna take me out on a date, is that what you're sayin'?"

Edited 2013-06-21 19:19 (UTC)

"Yeah," Wash says, almost before he realizes he has. There's a faint pink dusting on his cheeks, but now that the words are out and said it's like the weight that's been pinning him down all these weeks has lifted. Like he can breathe again. And even though he's still nervous as fuck, he knows what he wants. He can face it, too.

"If you want to. I mean, this. I want to try. Just-- whatever happens, I don't want to lose you, okay?" He has to try harder to hold the smile, but Wash reaches out to touch her shoulder, gentle. "You're still my best friend. If you don't-- I understand. But I care about you, and I wanna try." His lips quirk back up again, hopeful, but unsure. "Okay?"

York makes a face when he touches her shoulder, like she's smiling to cover up a cringe, or maybe it's the other way around. Either way, it's just nerves, and hers are a little frayed just from the sheer charge of this conversation. The tension melts from her shoulders with a breath, though, because more than anything, she's relieved. This could've been so much worse. She manages a smile, a real one.

"I'm not so easy to lose, you know. This is my apartment." She drops her gaze if only because she can't handle that sincere look on his face for more than a minute at a time, reaching for her water. She rubs her thumb along the edge of the glass. Her smile widens by just a touch. "I guess I wouldn't say no to a date."

"Hey, it's mine too," Wash says. The tension's really breaking, now, and the smile he gives her has a lot more sureness behind it. He squeezes her shoulder and then drops his hand, not wanting to crowd her.

"You guess, huh?" he asks, tipping his head at her. "That's-- good. Okay. Whatever you wanna do. We can go out. Or stay in. Or-- anything. I just-- you know." He chuckles, still smiling, but there's a twinge of nervous excitement running through him. "Doesn't matter. I just wanna be with you."

Not that she'd ever say it out loud, but he's got this boyish glow to him that she's never seen on him before. It reminds her of David, the David from her world -- but for the first time, that thought doesn't make her chest hurt so much. She returns the slightly nervous laugh, combing her fingers through her hair.

"Hey, you're the one who asked. You have to pick the date." She gives him a lopsided smile, still looking like she's a little nervewracked while relief still settles in, slow and steady. She doesn't have a hard time believing he's sincere. Maybe that's what makes it that much more difficult to navigate. It's not like she's looking to crush any hearts, here. She shifts her weight, resting her hip against the counter. "So..." She lets the word hang there, the what now? following only silently.

Edited 2013-07-11 21:21 (UTC)

"Okay, okay, I'll pick. Just-- y'know, tell me if you want something else."

He's been just as afraid to voice the what now, the affirmation that this really happened, that there's something that's supposed to come next. That they've both acknowledged this, that they're going to move forward from it. They can't pretend this didn't happen. They can't turn back and erase it.

But this has gone okay so far. Maybe that means it'll stay that way.

He reaches for her other hand, curling his fingers around the side of hers, encouraging her to take his hand in return. "So," he says, "are we okay?"

There's definitely no turning back now. This isn't the kind of bell you can unring. Sure, if things don't work out they'd still be friends, she's sure. But it'd never be quite the same again.

"'Course we're okay," she says, her eyes dropping to his hand. He's got different hands from David, in a way. His are a little more weathered, and the way he touches her is different. She closes her fingers over his hand. "You think I'd say yes to a date with you if we weren't okay?"

Edited 2013-07-11 21:48 (UTC)

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traintag C:

aw yissssss

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